NEWARK – With the specter of union-busting Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s rising popularity casting a shadow over potential 2016 Republican presidential candidates, one of New Jersey’s most prominent Democrats questioned the labor negotiating tactics of the state’s Republican governor, who might also run for the White House.
“When you hear [Governor Chris Christie] focusing on pension reforms and benefit costs, it got the attention of a lot of people nationally. But the reality is that the governor is using that as a distraction from what the real problem in the state right now is: the economy,” said state Senate President Steve Sweeney (D-3), a potential 2017 Democratic gubernatorial candidate, to PolitickerNJ moments after speaking at a labor rally at Rutgers-Newark on Tuesday in support of university workers getting fair contracts. “If we had just grown our economy to the national average, we’d have $3.3 billions dollars more in the state coffers, which means we could be funding pensions and not have the crisis we have right now.”
Sweeney made his remarks after a labor union rally attended by both local and national union heavyweights, including American Federation of Teachers (AFT) President Randi Weingarten, New Jersey State AFL-CIO President Charles Wowkanech and Chris Shelton, Communications Workers of America (CWA) District 1 Vice President.
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